US lawmakers want better medical treatment for immigrant detainees

AGENCIESMay 15, 2008, 05.14am IST

WASHINGTON: Top lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding more information from the Homeland Security Department about medical treatment provided to illegal immigrants detained in the U.S.

Recent news reports have detailed insufficient _ and in some cases negligent _ medical treatment for immigrant detainees over the past five years. The reports have sparked renewed interest in an issue that has been raised for years by human rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat who has held one hearing on the topic, said details she has heard about detainees' treatment are ``horrifying.'' It ``fails to meet international standards, and it makes me quite ashamed,'' Lofgren said Wednesday. She is the chairwoman of the Judiciary's immigration subcommittee.

Congress is considering several bills that call for improvements in detainee conditions and would require more accountability from the Homeland Security Department. For instance, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent, reintroduced a bill this week that he proposed in 2006.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the Homeland Security agency that oversees immigrant detentions, disputes many of the allegations laid out in the news reports, including a four-part Washington Post series that concluded Wednesday.

That agency spends $100 million (euro65 million) a year on detainee health care which is twice as much as it spent a few years ago, ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. Since ICE was formed in 2003, 71 people out of 1.5 million have died in its custody, she said.

``Every death in custody _ any death in custody _ is a regrettable, sad occurrence,'' Nantel said. ``It is not an indication of a broken system.''

Lofgren disagreed, saying, ``ICE has a veracity problem. I have learned that what they say cannot be relied upon.''

In April, the federal government acknowledged it was negligent in the death of an immigrant whose cancer went undiagnosed for nearly a year while he was in custody.

Immigration enforcement became a priority after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Each day ICE has about 32,000 people in detention and about 300,000 each year. This is up starkly from before 2001 when the Immigration and Naturalization Service detained about 95,000 people each year, Nantel said.

ICE's health care spending has not kept pace with the number of detainees going through the system, said Tom Jawetz, a lawyer with the ACLU's National Prison Project.

Jawetz said to save money, in some cases ICE will deport an illegal immigrant before providing medical care _ a claim ICE says is blatantly false. ICE has delayed deportation to ensure proper medical treatment for a detainee, Nantel said.

But getting details about individual cases has been difficult over the years, said Bill Frelick, the refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch. Among the difficulties are getting permission from ICE to go inside detention centers to interview detainees; gaining permission to see detainees medical records; tracking down detainees because they are often transferred from one facility to another or deported; and persuading the detainees to talk about the treatment.

Frelick said most detainees talk to them on the condition of anonymity. This, he says, makes it easy for ICE to deflect certain inquiries and complaints, because ICE will say they don't know who the advocacy groups are referring to. ``It becomes one of these circular sorts of things where it's hard to make the case,'' he said.

Jawetz said there are serious problems with the medical care of people incarcerated across the country, not just illegal immigrants. But he said care for illegal immigrants is worse because of the additional layers of bureaucracy.